Crypto glossary
Chain hopping
Chain hopping is a laundering technique that moves illicit crypto across several blockchains and assets in quick succession to make it harder to trace.
A typical sequence swaps stolen tokens for a native coin, sends it over a bridge to another network, converts it again on a DEX or instant exchange and repeats. Each hop changes the asset, the ledger and often the address format, so an investigator has to stitch together records from several chains and services instead of following one transaction graph.
The pattern shows up after most large hacks. Groups linked to North Korea, for example, have repeatedly moved stolen ETH into bitcoin through bridges and swap services before cashing out through brokers. Regulators and analytics firms now treat rapid cross-chain movement right after an exploit as a strong red flag, and bridges and swap services face pressure to screen inbound funds.
Chain hopping slows tracing but rarely breaks it completely, since bridges emit events that tie deposits to withdrawals and modern tools follow them automatically. Normal users also move between chains for cheaper fees or yield, so cross-chain activity alone is not evidence of laundering.
Example
Within an hour of a DeFi exploit, the attacker swaps USDC to ETH, bridges it to Bitcoin through a cross-chain swap service, then splits the BTC across dozens of new addresses.